App Watch: Fiddling on the IPad

Music app developer Smule’s latest app, Magic Fiddle, emerged out of a dare. Walking out of classical musician Lang Lang’s concert in San Francisco last April, in which the pianist played an encore with Smule’s iPad piano app, Smule co-founder Ge Wang joked with colleagues about creating a violin app that would force users to put their iPads up to their face and rest their chins on the device to make it work.

Almost seven months later in November, the company came out with Magic Fiddle, a violin app.

Mr. Wang says that it prototyped the app over the summer, simplifying the violin, so the app has three color coded strings instead of four and a circular bow at the bottom of it. Though he and his team were tempted to require users to place their chin on the iPad, they ultimately decided to make it optional.

Like its previous apps, Magic Fiddle uses technology to take the technical skill out of instrument playing and allows users to express themselves through music. “It’s totally ironic, but technology has always played a role in music,” says Mr. Wang. “Computers are just the new technology of our time.”

Though Smule doesn’t disclose the number of downloads it has gotten, Mr. Wang says it has been successful. Magic Fiddle and its previous app, Magic Piano, have the highest level of engagement out of all of its apps, he says. Its other apps like Ocarina and Leaf Trombone (an ocarina and trombone app respectively) have been acclaimed as well.

Mr. Wang hasn’t yet sent the app to violin virtuosos like Joshua Bell, but he says early feedback from violinists and string musicians has been mostly positive. The St. Lawrence String Quartet, who played Pachelbel’s Canon with Magic Fiddle, missed the tactile feel of the strings and the curvature of an actual instrument but loves the bow, he says.

Mr. Wang promises “more crazy and whimsical” music apps are coming from Smule but he also says the company plans to start building a community of people who like music and can be connected by music making. “We’re definitely exploring the human and social side of music making,” he said.